Shia LaBluff: Actor caught plagiarising after he was caught plagiarising (…seriously)

Hollywood star Shia LaBeouf is in a spot of bother this week after he was accused of plagiarising his apology after first plagiarising the work of comic book writer Daniel Clowes for his new short film HowardCantour.com.

LaBeouf’s short debuted online last night (it has since been taken offline) and it didn’t take long before HowardCantour.com was ripped to shreds by film and comic buffs who noticed more than a few similarities between LaBeouf’s film and Daniel Clowes story Justin M Damiano. In fairness to Shia, he apologised, but according to Bleedingcool.com, he stole that too...

From Yahoo Answers, when answering the question “Why did Picasso say 'good artists copy but great artists steal' four years ago, user Lili wrote:

Merely copying isn’t particularly creative work, though it’s useful as training and practice. Being inspired by someone else’s idea to produce something new and different IS creative work, and it may even revolutionalize the “stolen” concept.

Both works focus on a world-weary film critic who has become disillusioned with life and even the opening narration from HowardCantour.com is even copied straight from the comic Justin M Damiano: "A critic is a warrior, and each of us on the battlefield have the means to glorify or demolish (whether a film, a career, or an entire philosophy) by influencing perception in ways that if heartfelt and truthful, can have far-reaching repercussions." Speaking to Buzzfeed, Clowes said: “I’ve never spoken to or met Mr. LaBeouf. I’ve never even seen one of his films that I can recall – and I was shocked, to say the least, when I saw that he took the script and even many of the visuals from a very personal story I did six or seven years ago and passed it off as his own work. I actually can’t imagine what was going through his mind.” LaBeouf took to Twitter last night/this morning to apologise for not crediting Clowes at all, but as we said above, it seems as though he plagiarised that too... You can check out LaBeouf's Twitter feed by clicking here.

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